


Someone to Say Goodbye To

by aameyalli



Series: Surana Stories [3]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-04
Updated: 2020-04-08
Packaged: 2021-02-28 22:11:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,527
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23474407
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aameyalli/pseuds/aameyalli
Summary: Five partings between Anders and Surana (and one staying together)
Relationships: anders & surana
Series: Surana Stories [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1614265
Comments: 5
Kudos: 13





	1. Anders & the Clever Fox

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> cw for mention of physical abuse & implications of sexual abuse by Templars

**1\. Anders & the Clever Fox**

**9:28 Dragon - 9 years before the Mage Rebellion**

* * *

“There has been,” said Anders, throwing open the door to Max’s tiny office, “a bad decision.”

“Oh?” Max was curled up under the slit window, reading a slim book bound in green cloth. Both his elbows nearly knocked against the walls. Anders had to duck to step inside. Really, Irving had given the young Enchanter a _broom_ closet to work in. Max didn’t seem bothered by the cramped space, any more than he seemed bothered by Anders barging in. He didn’t even look up from his book. “Has this bad decision befallen you, or Jowan?”

“I don’t climb stairs for _Jowan’s_ problems.”

“I see. Well. You know I can’t do pregnancy tests or cure itches. You’d do better on your own.”

“Wh—You _prudish_ old—I can’t believe you!”

Placidly, Max flipped a page.

Anders sighed in a huff and pulled the door shut behind him. It whined like a bitch on its hinges. How Max could stand working in this glorified cupboard, forgotten by the Senior Enchanters, not even permitted to cast without Wynne or Irving’s supervision, after he’d behaved himself for 20 years, blazed through his Harrowing, and _earned_ his Enchanter’s rank with new research, Anders didn’t know. Matsendra Surana had the patience of a Divine.

Anders sat down heavily in the chair across from Max.

“I hexed the Knight Captain in a very rude way.”

“Eddie Hadley? I always thought he was rather tame. What’s he done to you?” Max dog-eared his book and set it down on the desk beside his teapot (shaped like a pumpkin, a gift from Wynne) which he touched gently with the back of his hand. A second later, the pot was whistling and gushing out steam. Unsupervised magic. The tiny rebellion made Anders smile.

“Anders? What’s happened?”

“Oh.” Anders shook himself. “Nothing.”

Max poured two cups of tea and passed one across the desk. Anders took it gratefully. It was piping hot and smelled like gardens. Max was watching him, his eyes dark and bright. Worried, Anders thought.

“Hadley did nothing,” he repeated. “That’s sort of the problem. He hasn’t hurt anyone, doesn’t take advantage, isn’t bright enough to catch me. As far as I know, he doesn’t even smile at girls.” _Like Cullen_ went unspoken. “But I’m just—I’m so _sick—”_

Anger rose up, hard and sudden, in his throat, and he took a gulp of tea to wash it down. Too much, too fast. It burned his tongue. “Ow! Hot!”

“Careful,” said Max. Of tea _and_ of Templars, Anders assumed. The Tower’s walls were thin. Anders dropped his voice to a whisper.

“I’m so _sick_ of them all doing nothing. I hate them _watching_ and _listening_ and _touching—”_

“Touching?” Again the look of alarm and pain from Max.

“Touching my damn _things!”_ Anders hissed. “Going through my books looking for—I don’t know! Odes to blood magic? Deathroot recipes? Love notes? A secret diary where I write _Greagoir eats mice when no one’s looking_ in scary red ink over and over? I’m sick of Templars. I’m sick of—” His eyes were burning. He wasn’t sure if he felt like crying or gagging or throwing Max’s teapot against the wall. He took another sip of tea, smaller this time, and swallowed hard.

He wasn’t lying to be tough or anything. Hadley hadn’t done anything. Just his stupid fucking job. But Anders hated him for it. He hated the way that fat-faced stranger had joked around while pawing through his clothes and books, like they were friends. Like he hadn’t also done _nothing_ when Ser Imogen was caught in the apprentice quarters after hours, or when Ser Abbott was leaving cuts and bruises on all the young elves, _including Max,_ or when Ser Cady pulled his earring so hard it tore out and bled all over, or when he couldn’t find Karl for days and _days—_

The heat in his eyes was painful now. He took a shaky breath.

“I need to run again. I _need_ to.”

“Is that wise, Anders?”

He could see the disappointment in the curve of Max’s mouth, and the disapproval. His friend would never understand. He loved the Circle. He thought it loved him back. He would stay inside this closet, reading and making tea, until his hair was white and white dust settled on the fine brown tips of his ears and he died and some Tranquil came and found him here and threw his body and his research in the lake. (They wouldn’t save it. Max was putting glyphs together in patterns no one ever tried before. The Chantry never liked mages that _learned.)_

“No,” said Anders. “It’s desperately unwise. Of course. Will you cover for me?”

Max drained his cup of tea in one swig, like a pirate knocking back a shot of rum. “Is a fox clever?”

Looking at his friend, red-haired, sharp-faced and canny but so _happy_ with his cage, Anders didn’t know. Max had been clever, when they were kids. When they played pranks on the Templars and he sold contraband in the apprentices' bunkroom. But since he moved up here he was quiet, boring, content with himself. Content with Irving's flattery. Content with the Templars. Anders would never love him less, but...

“Thank you,” he said. He slid his teacup across the desk and stood. With one hand on the iron doorknob, Anders stopped. “Will you follow me?”

“I don’t think so,” said Max. His smile was distant. He said the same thing every time. “You’ll travel faster alone. Besides, I’m not crazy and I have the mysteries of the cosmos to solve.” He patted the cover of the green book he’d been reading— _Isseya’s Runes—_ and Anders was struck cold and dumb again with the image of Max’s research torn up, sunk in Lake Calenhad, the white pages dissolving like petals in black water.

“Naturally,” said Anders. “I wouldn’t want to get between you and the cosmos.”

“If anyone could make the stars jealous...’’

“Har har." For once, Anders wasn’t in the mood for fake flirting. "Bye, Max.”

Anders left the broom closet. He didn’t feel the need for parting gifts. Max still had the jewelry Anders had given him the first time he ran away, and the books Anders left with him for safe-keeping the second and third times. (Once borrowed, he’d never known Max to give a book back, ever.) And he knew, though he’d never say so out loud—he knew he’d be back soon.

Still, Anders’ fourth escape from Kinloch Hold was the slickest so far. He strolled out through the loading dock, swam the lake, and ran off shivering under the stars, and the Templars didn’t catch up for a week.

When they did they dragged him from the bushes and Ser Cady beat his shoulders and the backs of his knees to knock him down and then called him a maleficar shit and punched his head while friendly Eddie Hadley searched his bag, and Anders thought suddenly, as if Cady’s fists had knocked the memory into place, of Max enjoying _Isseya’s Runes._ Isseya’s. He knew about Isseya. Isseya was a blood mage who tamed griffons. _That_ was not a book for Enchanters who lived meekly and mildly in broom closets, no Ser. And Max’s desk was piled highwith notes.

Maybe foxes _were_ clever. And someday—maybe someday Max would follow him, and a whole company of Templars wouldn’t be able to take them both. Anders felt sure of that. And then, maybe then, they’d all of them wish that they hadn’t done _nothing._


	2. Anders & the Summer Rain

**2\. Anders & the Summer Rain**

**9:15 Dragon - 22 years before the Mage Rebellion**

* * *

The first time Anders escaped, he was twelve and had no friends. He didn’t get very far.

It was a hot, dark afternoon, and rain was blowing in across the lake, and it was so muggy inside the apprentices’ library that the Templars let them open a window. The Tower had small windows, thin and bright like squinting eyes, but Anders was bird-boned, skinny and quick, and he’d climbed up a bookshelf and wriggled through to freedom before he even knew he wanted to, and the Templars, sluggish from the weather and surprise, heavy with armor, their swords so short and stubby, couldn’t get across the room to stop him.

He dropped down one story onto the bridge. His hands slapped against the stone and came up stinging, already turning red, but he was up again, running. He ran like crazy. Pelting across the bridge like a scared cat. He couldn’t see the shore. It was far away and the air was thick. But it was there, somewhere, dead ahead of him—

The knights on the bridge were fast. He’d only made it a few flying strides across Lake Calenhad before they grabbed him, one to each arm, so much bigger than him that he was swung up into the air with his feet kicking.

“Andraste!” The Templar holding his right arm had a mean, barking voice. “What do you think you’re doing?”

Anders burst into tears.

“How the fuck did you get out? Oi! I’m asking you!”

Anders couldn’t answer. He cried and cried. His hands hurt from the fall. His face and throat felt like they were swelling up and stiffening. He dangled there between the two men, just crying, and warm rain strafed over the stones of the bridge and his hard, hot, puffy-feeling face, and the clouds were the color of bruises. His breath came in hiccups.

The Templars put him down, but kept their hands clamped down on his shoulders. Even the metal of their gauntlets was hot.

“I’ve seen this one,” said the one on his left. “He doesn’t talk. I’ll take him in.”

“NO!” It ripped out of him, a wild shriek, and the Templars jumped. For a second, Anders was very still, shocked by the sound of his own voice. Then he started crying again. “I want to go _home!”_

He wrenched his shoulders back and forth, trying to tear free of the knights’ hot metal hands. They squeezed harder. It started to hurt. “I want to go home! I want to go home! I want to go home!” He was screaming, louder and louder, like if he made his voice loud enough it would rattle the bridge and drop them all into the lake, and the Templars with their armor would sink and he could swim away. “I WANT TO GO HOME!”

“Stop it. Stop it!” They shook him until he shut up, then marched him back inside.

It was Enchanter Wynne, the old lady, who came running up to meet them, not Irving. She clicked her tongue when she saw him. “Silly thing. What would you do that for?” Then she turned to the Templars, said _“Thank_ you” in an acid tone, and they let go of Anders, convulsively, like his skin was burning their gauntlets instead of the other way around. They went to their posts in a hurry.

“Look at you. Little vagabond. You’re soaked through,” Wynne said, and clicked her tongue again. “Let’s get you cleaned up. And then, young Anders—that _is_ what they call you, yes?—and then we shall have a talk.”

“I just—“ His voice was strangled. The tears kept rolling down his face, warm and heavy. He gulped. “I just want to go _home.”_

“This is home.” Wynne smiled. But it was a tired, wrinkly smile, and didn’t make him feel better.

She led him upstairs to her office. She didn’t grab him, but kept a hand hovering a few inches behind the small of his back. Just in case. Enchanter Wynne was sort of okay, but she wasn’t stupid and she wasn’t sweet.

There were already two other boys in the office when she opened the door and—watchfully, pointedly—ushered him through. One of them was a few years younger than Anders, the other a few years older. The little one was an elf, short and soft with baby fat, whose hair shone like copper against the dark brown of his skin. The older one was human, square jawed and mousy, fidgeting, annoyed. He couldn’t have been more than 16, but had a little tuft of gray in his hair, at the temple. He also had a nasty-looking black eye. Gray Hair Boy glared at Wynne as she came in and settled at her desk.

They were both apprentices, so they’d been in lessons with Anders for the last six months, but he was guiltily sure he didn’t know their names, hadn’t talked to them. Well. He hadn’t talked to anyone.

There was an empty chair between the two. Anders sat down in it and hugged himself tightly. He hoped somehow they wouldn’t notice he’d been crying, though he could feel the itch of redness in his cheeks and the sticky drying tears.

“Hullo!” said Little One.

Gray Hair Boy glanced over. “ ‘Lo, Anders.”

Anders thought he should say hello back or maybe ask their names, but his throat pulled tight, and then Wynne cleared her throat and it was too late.

“My, my,” Wynne said. “What a day for troublemaking. I don’t suppose the three of you boys were in cahoots?”

Little One raised a pudgy hand. “What’s cahoots?”

“Conspiracy, dear,” said Wynne, and Little One nodded wisely. “Karl..."

Gray Hair Boy wriggled deeper into his sulk.

“I’m surprised at you. I should not need to tell you that _brawling_ in a stairwell is unfit behavior for a young mage.”

“I didn’t start it,” he snapped. “Isaac—"

“I don’t care what Isaac did or said to provoke you,” Wynne said stiffly. “I care that you not be provoked again."

While she lectured Gray Hair Boy—Karl—Anders shifted restlessly and looked around the office. It was nice, all shiny dark wood and books bound in red and gold and a jar full of hard caramels on the desk. Someone had painted a mural of an apple tree on the back wall, with gilded branches and sunbeams. Wynne even had two of her own windows. It smelled like old people, though. And it was hot and damp as anywhere today.

Beside him, the little elf kicked his feet back and forth. He seemed, bizarrely, happy to be here.

“You will not be seen fighting again in this Tower,” Wynne was saying. “It is poor conduct, and more importantly, it is dangerous.”

“I wasn’t going to kill him,” Karl muttered.

“No,” said Wynne. “But a Templar might have.”

That got Anders’ attention. He looked up, just as Wynne steepled her fingers and swept her gaze over all three boys.

“They are good people. They are called to protect and not hurt mages. But they don’t take kindly to disruptions. Karl, you put yourself and Isaac in danger. Do not repeat this.”

Anders squinted. What was she saying? They were good but they would kill you? Did that make sense to anyone?

Karl sank back in his chair, head bowed. He seemed blown over by her cold, dry rush of disapproval. “Yes, Enchanter.”

“Anders,” said Wynne.

He startled, feeling suddenly pinned down.

“I understand you don’t feel at home yet in the Circle. It’s a difficult adjustment, but you must know you’re safe here. You’re cared for. The other mages are your family.” She spread her hands to indicate Karl and the little elf. “The Templars are here to support us. This is home.”

She’d said that before. Anders still didn’t buy it. But he nodded anyway.

“Don’t run again. They could kill you.”

“Yes, Enchanter,” Anders croaked out.

“Pumpkin.”

The little one perked up.

“Don’t steal books, dear. Just check them out. There’s a clipboard.”

Then, unbelievably, she handed him a caramel. He popped it in his mouth and said in a muffled, sticky voice, “Yes, Enchanter.”

“You boys can go. _Behave.”_

They left single file, the little one going last and waving cheerfully to Wynne, and headed toward the stairs down to the apprentice floor.

“You’re talking now,” said Karl.

Anders nodded. Then, thinking better of that: “Yes.”

The older boy stuck out his hand, which was big and square like his face. “Karl Thekla.”

“Anders.”

“We know.”

“And I,” said the little one around his mouthful of candy, “am Matsendra Surana, king of the Circle. You _may_ call me Max.”

“Oh!” Anders’ lips twitched. “And _may_ I kiss your hand too, king of the Circle?”

“You may.” Max offered it grandly, and Anders gave it a little peck. Max pulled his hand away, giggling.

“The Enchanter called you Pumpkin,” said Anders.

“Cos of my hair,” said Max. “Wynne likes to pretend she’s my mum. But I can’t say so or else she’ll get mad. Prob’ly because she had a baby and the Templars took it away so I remind her of lost domestic joys.”

Anders sputtered. “Because _what?”_

Max grinned, showing a gap where he’d recently lost a baby tooth. “I keep my ear to the walls. That’s why I’m king.”

Karl snorted. “He makes it all up.”

“Stick with me, kid,” said Max, patting the part of Anders’ arm he could reach, “and you’ll be alright.”

Karl scoffed again, but clapped Anders on the other shoulder as if to say, ‘’Stick with _us.”_

As they started down the staircase together, Anders threw a look back at the door to Wynne’s office and wondered if somehow she’d put them together on purpose, so he’d have people to keep him from running.

Or—he set his jaw tightly, and looked ahead—people to say goodbye to.

“I _don’t_ make up my secrets, Karl,” Max said sweetly. “I know _lots_ of secrets about you. And Isaac. And Niall. And Jowan. And Moira. And—“

“You couldn’t tell me one thing about Moira.”

“She brushes her teeth with elfroot oil.”

“Where would she even get that?”

“Wouldn’t you like to know,” said Max, and pulled a handful of caramels from the pocket of his robes.

* * *

The next six months felt slower, more real. Anders went to his classes, kept a closer eye on the Templars, and talked. Mostly to Karl, who knew _everything_ about Creation magic and wasn’t half as grouchy once his eye healed. Just serious. He had really pretty eyes, Anders discovered. The brightest, clearest gray. Like the little stripe in his hair, which was actually quite cute. Karl liked to walk close to people and throw his arm around them while they talked, and he always felt warm.

After a few weeks of “cahoots,” as Max now insisted on calling their friendship, Karl even told the story of how his hair turned gray, which was also how he’d ended up in the Circle. His father, a herder up in the mountains, had made a mistake and gotten gored by a druffalo, and Karl was so scared that he lit up blue like a lyrium bottle, knitted the wounds back together with magic, and then fell asleep for a whole entire week. He woke up with a shock of gray hair, feeling like he’d been trampled by his father’s whole herd, and there were Templars standing around his bed.

Anders didn’t get why Karl’s father turned him in. Healing was good magic. Not like setting barns on fire. He should’ve _thanked_ Karl for saving him. But Karl said his father was a good man. Just that. “My father is a good man.” He also said, ‘’Word of advice? Never try spirit healing without a spirit around.’’ Karl didn’t say a whole lot, but when he did it was always flat, solid things, set down like paving stones. Anders took note.

Anders learned about Max, too. He was eight years old. He was in the Circle because the Dalish didn’t want him. He got private lessons from Wynne. He wasn’t allowed to cast spells without her looking over his shoulder, so he read textbooks and doodled glyphs on his hands instead and, apparently, had way too much free time left over. He moved freely through the Tower on padded feet. He knew something about everyone in the Circle and was some kind of smuggler too. Half the apprentices were deep in debt to him for caramels, restricted books, non-uniform socks, colored ink, Orlesian magazines, maps to hiding places that the Templars didn’t know—Anders wouldn’t have been surprised to learn he had a lyrium business on the side. When Anders brought Mittens into the bunkroom, Max even procured a canvas bag of catnip and said, with his gap-toothed smile, "I’ll put it on your tab."

Besides his usefulness, Max was sweet. Really sweet. He reminded Anders of a cat, the way he could sense you were upset before you said anything and just curl up with you. And if cats could talk, they’d probably say creepy things out of nowhere, same as Max did, like, “It’s too bad Wynne and Greagoir don’t love each other anymore,” or “Don’t worry, Anders. I won’t tell anyone your other name,” or, most charming of all, “The Tower feels more crowded than it is because of dead people." It made Anders wonder if there was a good reason for Wynne holding Max back in magic lessons.

Anders could never be scared of Max, though. He was too little. Too gentle. Too kind. He never actually called in his smuggler’s debts, or cashed in his blackmail material. He just liked to give things to people. He liked to know what they wanted. He liked their attention and their love.

And Anders loved his boys. _His_ boys. They took to walking together, shoulder to shoulder, between classes and meals and chore assignments. They fell asleep in piles on one bunk. They kept the Templars busy with pranks and problems, Karl’s logical planning, Anders’ wit, and Max’s mysterious supply lines combining into a mischief machine. They kept Anders from running for a long time.

But the summer passed, the snows came, and the Tower was still dark and small, still full of hulking, staring Templars, and it wasn’t home.

Max caught him with his bag half-packed, trying to choose which socks to bring. Wool was warmer, but if it got wet from snow it would never dry out, and he hated wet feet more than anything—and then a small voice right in his ear—

“You’re leaving?”

Anders cried out, flinging the socks away in terror.

“It’s just me,” said Max, and it was. “Sorry.”

Anders pressed a hand to his chest, wheezing a little. “Don’t _do_ that. You’re so quiet.”

Max peered over his shoulder at the bag, the smallclothes laid out on the floor, the paper-wrapped staches of food and herbs. “You’re running away again.”

“Yes.”

“You’re leaving me.”

“I have to try to go home.” Anders bent to his task again, retrieving both pairs of socks and stuffing them in the bag, sacrificing a bundle of elfroot to make room. He could pick more on his way.

“This is home.”

There was something weird about Max’s voice. Anders looked back at him and almost didn’t understand what he was seeing—the little elf looked _angry,_ his mouth and long ears shaking, his dark eyes full and glittering. Anders had never seen him upset before.

“It’s not _my_ home,” said Anders. “I _have_ a home. I have a mother. I wasn’t thrown away.”

He realized, a second too late, what that sounded like. Oh, Maker’s breath. He reached out to Max, trying to be gentle, but his friend just shook his head, backing away. “No,” Max said. “No.”

“Max—”

Max’s eyes spilled over. The tears rushed down his face, fast and hot. “I’ll tell Wynne on you.”

“No!” Anders hissed. “Max, no! Come with me. Just—” He stuck his hand out farther. “Just come with me. We’ll get Karl too. We can all go, and—and—we’ll find somewhere to hide together.”

Max sniffled loudly and shook his head again.

“Stop crying.” Anders felt like shaking him. “Someone will hear you. Just come with me.”

Max wiped his nose on the sleeve of his robes and shut his mouth tight. The tears kept coming. He was trembling all over. 

Anders gritted his teeth. Max looked like such a _baby_ suddenly. Small and weak and stupid and dangerous. Was this what Anders had looked like to the Templars when they caught him?

“You’re not telling Wynne,” said Anders. “You’re going to pack some clothes and whatever food you have, and put on your winter hood, and…”

Max shook his head, again and again. “This is _home,”_ he bleated out.

“It’s not—” 

“I’m telling!”

Max moved to run off, and Anders caught his sleeve. "No!’"

“I’m telling _Karl!_ Let go! A-a-anders!”

Max tore away from him. This time Anders let him go.

He finished packing, shame and annoyance crawling up the back of his neck. When he slipped out the door of the empty bunkroom, Karl was waiting for him. His face was set as stone but he handed Anders a water bottle wrapped in soft leather and said, “Don’t touch rashvine unless you have gloves on. It's harder to notice in wintertime,” and then looped him into a warm hug.

“Did Max—”

“He only talked to me.”

“Okay.”

Karl released him with a stiff nod, and Anders left the tower. Not through a window—they were all locked from outside since his first escape—but through one of the many hidden crawlspaces that Max peddled directions to. He emerged from the close darkness of the passage into a bush by the Tower docks. It was still dense with leaves even in winter.

Anders peeked through the branches. No Templars. Shipments to the Tower were infrequent in winter, the mages and Templars holed up inside living off preserved food and lyrium stores, like squirrels in a tree, so Anders supposed there was no need to guard the docks.

He crawled under the bush and down the narrow spit of beach, careful to keep under the first floor windows’ line of sight, then vanished into the icy waters of Lake Calenhad. He held his pack over his head as he swam to keep it dry and give himself some illusion of cover, in case an archer saw him. No one seemed to.

The lake was cold. Killingly cold. There wasn’t any snow falling yet but the sky was full of it, glowing white. It hurt to swim. It hurt to breathe. By the time he reached the near shore he was shivering, numb, and almost too weak to drag himself up the steep stony beach and change into dry clothes. But he couldn’t stop to rest. He climbed up the shore as soon as his shoes were on, moving fast, rubbing his hands for a little heat.

At the top of the beach he looked back at the Tower, rising from the lake like an accusing finger.

“Bye, Karl,” he said. “Bye, Max.” His words came out in a puff of white steam.

He had to try to get home. But it was nice to have someone...


End file.
